Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River, in 1820: Resumed and Completed, by the Discovery of its Origin in Itasca Lake, in 1832Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
History
Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River, in 1820: Resumed and Completed, by the Discovery of its Origin in Itasca Lake, in 1832
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
Great Lakes (North America); Mississippi River -- Sources; Northwest, Old -- Description and travel
We found the portage path to be a well-beaten wagon road across a level
fertile plain, which appeared to have been in cultivation from the
earliest Indian period. Probably it had been a locality for the tribes,
where they raised their favorite maize, long before the French first
reached the waters of Green Bay. Evidence of such antiquity in the plain
of Kákala appeared in an ancient cemetery of a circular shape, situated
on one side of the road, on a comparatively large surface, which had
reached the height of some eight or ten feet, by the mere accumulation
of graves. This has all the appearance of a sepulchral mound, in the
slow process of construction; for, on viewing it, I found a recent
grave. We passed, on this plain, a Winnebago village of ten or twelve
lodges, embracing two hundred souls. The portage is continued just one
mile. Embarking again, at this point, we proceeded down the river, and
encamped eight miles below this point, having, with every exertion, made
but twenty miles this day.
The interest which had been excited by the conchology of the
Mississippi and Wisconsin valleys, was renewed in the descent of the Fox
River, particularly in the section of it below Winnebago Lake. Shrunk to
its lowest summer level, its shores disclosed almost innumerable species
of unios, many of which had been manifestly dragged to the shores and
opened by the muskrat, thus serving to give hints for finding the living
species. Among these, the U. obliqua, U. cornutus, U. ellipticus, U.
carinatus, U. Alatus, U. prælongus, and U. parvus, were conspicuous; the
latter of which, it is remarked by Mr. Barnes, is the smallest and most
beautiful of all the genus yet discovered in America.[123] In the
duplicates, from this part of the Fox River, transmitted to Mr. Isaac
Lea, of Philadelphia, he found a species with green-rayed beaks, on a
yellow surface and iridescent nacre, having a peculiar structure, which
he did me the honor to name after me.[124] The description of Mr. Lea is
as follows: "Unio Schoolcraftensis. Shell subrotund, somewhat angular at
posterior dorsal margin, nearly equilateral, compressed, slightly
tuberculate posteriorly to umbonical slope. Substance of the shell
rather thick; beaks elevated; ligament short; epidermis smooth yellow,
with several broad green rays; teeth elevated, and cleft in the left
valve, single, and rising from a pit in the right; lateral teeth
elevated, straight, and lamellar; anterior cicatrices distinct,
posterior cicatrices confluent; dorsal cicatrices within the cavity of
the shell on the base of the cardinal tooth; cavity of the beaks angular
and deep; nacre pearly white and iridescent. Diameter ·7, length 1·1,
breadth 1·3 inches."
[123] Amer. Journ. Science, vol. vi. pp. 120, 259, &c.
[124] Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. v. p.
37; plate 3, fig. 9.
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